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Criticisms, reviews and writing (Patreon)

Published:
2018-09-06 17:15:07
Imported:
2026-06
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So, been having an interesting discussion over on reddit (yes, yes, hive of villainy and scum and all) about the latest series. There have been some interesting criticisms about the book, mostly about the pacing. I was also introduced to a new concept (scene-sequel). Since I'm not a 'trained' writer, it was a nice way to categorise some writing that I hadn't thought of before. Looking it over, I'm pretty sure the actual criticism about the pacing is correct.

On the other hand, there's discussions about John's lack of (obvious) motivation, which I'm not entirely sure I agree with. In either case, it's always nice to hear people are enegage in the story.

What I wanted to talk about is reviews and criticisms in general. One of the things I've found is that it's easy to focus on the negative, because they are not only often the most vocal but also the easiest to stick in the mind.

There's a stat floating around in my head that goes something like 1 in 10 unsatisfied customers will comment or review. 1 in 100 happy customers will do the same. 

In addition, psychologically, we are biased to focus on the negative more than the positive in general.

It's easy for a writer (or anyone) to focus on the negative. While it isn't wrong to review criticisms for potential improvements, it's also dangerous to overcorrect.

In my RL job, one of the biggest thing I have to deal with is convincing my employees that the noisy people complaining are often not as important as the quite, happily paying customers. I've often put into place regulations and changes in the business that have annoyed these people - but at the same time, increased the bottomline for the company because more, happy quiet customers are happy with the actions.

As an author, it's important to try to balance both - understanding when a criticism is valid and when to ignore them and just do what you want to. Sometimes, it can be a struggle either way, which is why I often don't read reviews. 

Comments

Cameron C

Depends. There’s a rule in business that says an unhappy customer will tell ten more people about their experience, versus a happy customer is unlikely to make much of a comment unless their experience was incredible. In this case, book 5 of your series is a tipping point between John’s various arcs. It is a middle book (in a sense) filled largely with transition. I’d argue his motivation has been the same since about book... 2? Where he realized if he doesn’t try and save people... no one will. And that’s what motivated him through book 3-4 - that same motivation. What this book managed, tone wise, was to show you the consequences of quick aggressive decisions. There’s a fallout. A build up. And that build up is also setting up for the next major conflict for the character to experience - in this case the end of the book scenario (which I’ll leave unsaid for reasons). This pacing means at times the book seems between a slog and an info dump at certain moments - and a lot of action you’d normally illuminate more (if John were in it), is glazed over as John is more like the Uber driver for part of the story. In my minds it is very realistic. He was too valuable to risk, and he sort of agreed with that under duress. His growth in this story is one of acceptance. Acceptance of the tribulations he’s agreed to, acceptance to work with galactics, acceptance that maybe he shouldn’t be as mad at Whitehorse.... because now he’s seeing what it is like on the other side of the table. To make those decisions that affect loads of people. I think this story was great in what it does for the series, but similarly can understand that an audience might not enjoy that as much as I do. All I do know is that you have a large amount of people chomping at the bit for book 6....

Daniel Schinhofen

I'm a horrible writer. I don't worry about pacing or anything other then the story as it comes to me. So I get to hear all the time about how slow my books are, but as always fuck em, if they don't like it they'll put it down and the ones who do will continue to read.

Daniel Schinhofen

as an aside your book is the next one up to be read on my list

Han Pol

It depends, always does, for he company were I work it is important as well that the customers are happy but then it's mostly Business to Business and the rules are different there, also the service is fairly expensive and can hardly be understood by most that is a difference. At least 10 % of my job are to complain to my boss what doesn't work so that we can fix it timely. For your book I liked it, as I do like the series. else I wouldn't support you here. But I can also understand how the discussion about the pacing or motivation came to be. As his Motivation was always a bit vague even if clearly outlined, it was still always a bit vague and not quite listed in clear priorities. And the pacing, well John is clearly motivated to do his Job, and acts in character, but then the story also has a kinda business feel to it, too much things to do in to little time. Good thing actually that he has his portal ability. Normally he would need to travel a lot to do all what he did, in this kind of story, so it might feel a bit odd, because he doesn't travel as much as would be normal in most Litrps. But well, in my option those are two fairly minor points in my option, the world building is very well done, the chars act in character even when it's sometimes a bit frustrating in Johns case but that has actually gotten much better when compared to the first 3 books. And the story still has a good bit of action and lots of drama, actually I would enjoy it more if John gets a bit more time on city development. Maybe give him a small pet project so that he has to focus a bit on city development and internal affairs.

Tao Wong

Yeah. Not being trained writers, a lot of what is done is based off instinct. I'm learning bits and pieces of the craft by checking out posts, but I'd rather just read more and analyse those books as I read them.

Gio Dude

If I remember right, you made some updates to books 1/2 after book three, correct? I remember feeling through the first read-through of 1/2/3 that John was just an angry dude who railed against his situation, but after re-reading a lot of that went away because his frustrations and background issues were explained. Might just be those angry people need to reread the books ;) In terms of pacing, I didn't have any issues with it. The book did a great job of setting up where John needs to go, because of how much of a glorified taxi he was in the book, and the few moments he did let loose were that much more cathartic for me. So still waiting with bated breath on the next one, and still hoping you do a Lana/Mikito book or series on how they manage while John's gone. Or it could be one of those weird temporal things where little-no time passes on earth while John's in some other dimension thingy, like the stores. Keep up the good work!